Businessman jailed for £300k fraud after borrowing money to buy land near Lancaster

Allan Livesey, 61, of Lake Road, Windermere was jailed on August 2 for three years one month for two counts of fraud by false representation.

He has also been disqualified from holding the position of Director for ten years.

The offences occurred between June 2018 and September 2019.

The court heard that Livesey amended invoices and bank statements and presented them to a finance company to fraudulently obtain in the region of £295,000.

Livesey approached the finance company in order to loan £1.9 million to purchase land at Wray, Lancashire to build five properties.

The finance company loaned the full amount with interest with the agreement being that they would receive half the profit once the houses had sold.

The company also agreed to pay Livesey £2,000 a month as a site management fee.

Building began in September 2018 and Livesey would receive invoices from the builder which he would then forward to the finance company who would release funds.

It came to light that Allan Livesey was amending the builders’ invoices and on some occasions fabricating invoices and presenting these to the finance company as genuine in order to commit fraud.

Livesey had also provided them with amended bank statements showing money transferred to the contractor which had actually been transferred to this own bank account.

Detective Constable Claire Keyes from the Economic Crime Unit said: “Livesey amended invoices from contractors for his own financial gain.

“Allan Livesey had an agreement which he signed with the finance company around the loan they provided to him and they trusted him further giving him further work to monitor other sites.

“Livesey was aware of what he was doing and defrauded the finance company from very early on in his working relationship with them.

“I hope today’s sentencing acts as a warning to other considering committing fraud.”